University of Toronto Schools - Twig Yearbook (Toronto, Ontario Canada)

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THE TWIG have seen nothing better for vigour and vivid effect. Phelps concentrated on con- tinuous activity, we are told, and an ex- treme comparison between imagination and reality. The great American actor, Edwin Booth, gave faccording to William Winter? na clear and smooth performance, presenting a dis- tinct study of fiend-inspired, compulsory criminality. lnherent majesty and military dash appear to have been the basis of his interpretation, and fto quote Winter again, he gave a study of fine imaginative and poetic sensibility. Sir Henry lrving, whose career closed one chapter of the history of the theatre only to open a new and better one, presented what has been judged the finest performance of Macbeth seen within the last century, ranking equally perhaps with Garrick's. He was an astute business man, and published beforehand a pamphlet cleverly contrived to stimulate argument. ln his performance, however, lrving made no attempt to follow out his theory, which will be discussed later on. He was accounted supreme as an actor when interpreting intellectual struggle or the conflict of the will with an uncontrollable force, as such, his interpretation of Macbeth must have been superlative. Many actors since lrving have assumed the role, notably Richard Mansfield, Robert Mantell, Sir Herbert Tree, Edward H. Sothern, and more latterly Lyn Harding and Charles Laughtong but few have added new ideals or business to the part. We have come to the end of our history, and it now remains to gather together the essences of the various presentations and discuss the identity of the man Macbeth. We find that the keynote of all the inter- pretations is fear. Ambition may indeed be the prompter of the first few incidents, but the play is undoubtedly a study in fear, as it affects Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo, Malcolm and Macduff. If Macbeth is purely ambitious, why does he say: lf chance will have me king, why chance may crown me Without my stir? An ambitious man would have entertained no such thoughts. If ambition is the central passion, why does the author introduce the witches? Why did he not make Macbeth the slave of ambition as he does Richard the Third? Macbeth throughout the play is a slave of fear. At the beginning it is the fear fostered by superstitution: i'Banquo: Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear Things that do sound so fair? When the superstition develops it becomes a fear of those forces which are gradually devouring his being: i'Macbeth: l am afraid to think what l have done: Look on't again l dare not. When he avowedly assumes the cloak of a villain, it is a fear of the future, a fear of the fate which he knows he cannot cheat: i'lVlacbeth: fhaving been told that none of woman born shall harm him? Then live, Macduffg what need l fear of thee? But yet I'll make assurance doubly sure And take a bond of fate. Thou shalt not liveg That l may tell pale-hearted fear it lies, And sleep in spite of thunder. And when at the last he realizes that the forces of evil have duped him completely, a wild, inane bravado superimposes itself on his moral cowardice, as in Antony and Cleopatrau: U ........ To be furious ls to be frightened out of fear, and in that mood The dove will peck the estridgef' Each of the actors mentioned excelled in the expression of one at least of these fears. Betterton, Kemble and, to a certain extent,

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T H E T WIC lifetime by Richard Burbage fthe originator of most of his leading partsl, but unfortun- ately no record whatever of his perform- ance exists. Even the date of the first pro- duction has been lost. Dr, Simon Forman, that infamous astrologer, has recorded in his diary a performance as early as l6l0, but no details of the acting were given. No record is available of any subsequent performance up till the time of Charles l. On November Sth, I664, Thomas Betterton assumed the role at l..incoln's lnn Fields Theatre, acting the original text as given in the First Folio: in l672, at Dorset Gardens. he presented a version of the tragedy by Sir William Davenant. This unfortunate perversion of Macbeth survived for many years, and along with Colley Cibber's mu- tilations obscured the impersonations by many great actors of Shakespearean char- acters. ln this presentation a chorus of singing witches was introduced findica- tive of the complete misunderstanding of the reason for the presence of the witchesj, in order to bring a group of beautiful women before the audience. Davenant's transcription of the play con- tinued to be used until the time of David Carrick, who, in I774, presented 'Mac- beth' as written by Shakespeare. fMr. C-arrick took the liberty of inserting bits of his own writing here and there, notably a dying speech so that Macbeth might hold the stage till the endif But if contemporary writers are-to be believed he gave a per- formance which for sheer expression of the haunted, despairing, fiend-tortured soul was far beyond anything seen up to that time. They tell us that, after the murder, holding the blood-stained daggers aloft, his face grew whiter and whiter, and that his whole expression of ghastliness and horror was tremendously effective. Disregarding dis- crepancies of costume and scenery, it is doubtful if Crarrick's performance of the part has ever been surpassed. John Philip Kemble, brother and leading man of the illustrious Sarah Siddons, gave a performance which is chiefly notable for 47 business innovations which have stayed with the play until the present. l-le had the bell inviting Macbeth to murder the king, ring twice instead of the usual once, to intimate the time of night. l-le was the first actor to dispense with the ghost of Banquo, an ex- pedient which leaves to the actor of Mac- beth the task of representing the ghost to the audience. Kemble's ideal of Macbeth has been preserved by his biographer Boaden, who writes as follows: i'Macbeth is a fatalist and conceives that certain beings are the organs of destiny. Fate will always bring its decrees to their completion. It is useless to question what has been pronounced by the spirits, to whom all mortal consequences are known. The success of any portrayal of Macbeth depends largely upon a sustained atmos- phere of the preternatural. Macbeth calls it this supernatural soliciting. However it may be obtained, the critics found it respon- sible for the great success of Edmund Kean. who presented the play in its original form at Drury Lane Theatre in l8l4. Following Garrick's lead, he made terror the keynote of his performance. Although short, he apparently evinced a rather remarkable vigour in his movements, all of which assisted towards his compelling impersona- tion. William Charles Macready gave his usual scholarly and scrupulously correct reading of Macbeth, and was esteemed in his day the greatest Thane of all time. The super- natural element was again uppermost, and the critics were also impressed by the num- ber of grunts and pregnant pauses which he injected into his performance. Samuel Phelps, one of the finest men ever to grace the English stage, presented the play at Sadler's Wells Theatre on Mav 2 7th, l844. ln this production he used a version of Davenant's contortion. Later, however, in September, 184 7, he revived the tragedy with such conscientious attention to Shake- speare that the whole of London was quite rightfully shocked. To quote the London Athenaeum - Since Edmund Kean we

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T H E Macready brought forth the kingly, upright man, wasting away from the fear of the evil enveloping him. Carrick and Kean pre- sented the man as full of fiery vigour, but awed by the suggestion of the supernatural, -combining the fear of the weird sisters with the physical fury inspired by terror. Phelps showed the man in terror of fate and the future. Booth managed to express all the fears, but, it seems, from a purely poetic standpoint. lrving excelled, as we have said, in the expression of intellectual struggle, and must therefore have been most of the supernatural, the internal evil, and the future. effective in the scenes depicting fear Superstition, or fear of those things which are beyond human understanding, has been of his- Third incor- This belief, of course, made it impossible for a powerful agent in the construction tory. Until the time of George the witches were thought to exist, and to porate the tempting evils of the world. people to understand that evil is a part of every human being,-an internal, not an external force. For this reason they could not gather from the play the ultimate func- tion of the weird sisters as an enemy within the fortress. Edmund Kean, in l8l4, was the first to realize this. I'll have the witches played properly, he said. Previously they had been accustomed to sweep on and off the stage in the voluminous skirts of the day, with lace caps, mittens, and muffs. Kean changed their appearance, their style of act- ing, and their atmosphere, thus restoring them to their proper place as the embodi- ment of the subconscious mind. This is the first of Macbeth's apprehensions. The second is fear of the evil in himself. The renowned Fanny Kemble has said: From the first scene of the play till the last the wounded soul of Macbeth writhes and groans over its own deterioration. lrving's performance illustrated this remarkably well. Obviously one must either despise or fear that which he hates. Macbeth hates the evils in himself which prompted these crimes: but he cannot despise them for the T 49 WIC reason that they are able to overcome him. He can and does fear them. Before the fear of the future could over- take Macbeth he must have become a com- plete villain. Whether the change from a good man to a knave is possible or not, we must discover. The English commentator Dowden doubts whether such a radical transformation could take place in any man, but such changes occur. Liquor, for one, may effect that change: and Macbeth was partaking of a much more intoxicating drink. He drained to its glittering depths the poisoned chalice of Ambition. According to the play the Thane was a fine man at the beginning of the action. l-le is referred to as brave Macbeth and Bellona's bride- groom. l-le was not, as lrving wrote in his published pamphlet ftotally at variance with his performancej, a poet with his brain and a villain with his heart .... l-lypocrite, traitor and regicide, he threw over his crimes the glamour of his own poetic, self-torturing thought. This theory is, of course, utterly wrong. If we do not accept at the start the presence of good in Macbeth, there can be no struggle between good and evil in the man, and the whole structure of the play topples. What, then, turns Macbeth from a hero into an utter knave? It is the same power of evil which drew the Irish Cuchulain forth to his death, wooed by half-truths and indefinite prophecies. It is the fear-inspiring recognition of one's own sin. Present also, however, is the fear the Thane bears for material things which show him up as a rogue and which will not let him escape the realities of his crime. The Ger- man authority Gervinus suggests that Mac- beth Was far behind his times: that he re- sented the advancement and culture of the English: that he was a warrior, pure and simple, and would have lived splendidly three or four hundred years earlier. Here we have a man whose sympathies are with a Wilder, less intellectual age ffrequent mention of the good old days is found in his speechesl, possessed of a hypersensitive imagination, and morally weak, opposed by